


Mr. Hale’s Art 301

by BritishAssistant



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Aromantic, Art Teacher Peter Hale, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Giants, Middle School, Nonbinary, Possessed Houses, Preteen drama, Sentient Evil House, Supernatural Drama, adults are useless, art class, as are werewolf packs, except for Peter Hale, the malicious enslaving kind, these kids deal with a lot of drama ok, who are disgruntled, younger siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21554332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BritishAssistant/pseuds/BritishAssistant
Summary: In which an undead alpha werewolf re-finds pack in a class of disaster prone, too curious, supernatural-magnet 7th graders.(A WIP which may spawn more chapters as it goes on).
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. February—Resignation

Peter Hale gets up late and feels listless for the first time in months.

He has breakfast in his pajamas, then showers, taking far more time in his self-grooming than he has in a long time.

Then, dressed in his nice clothes usually reserved for being socially charming, Peter sits in front of the television and watches Antiques Roadshow reruns.

His wolf is restless and the urge to prowl, to howl vibrates under his skin, but he keeps it in check by attempting to guess which of the monstrosities currently being flogged have any value, and which are cheap mimicries.

He pointedly does not think about certain individuals when certain objects appear on the screen (black velvet bullfighter painting, WW2 decanter, 1930s magnifying glass, Morai sculpture, civil war memorial portrait), and enjoys his 47-9 winning streak.

His phone begins vibrating incessantly.

Peter swipes a careless thumb across the screen. “Peter Hale speaking.”

“ _Hale!!_ ” Comes Assistant Principal Thorne’s tinny whine. “ _Are you **trying** to drag this school through the mud?!_”

Peter quirks an eyebrow, feeling somewhat relived at having an easy target to needle. “Why Tommy, I didn’t know you valued my contribution to the school staff so much. Unfortunately my resignation—”

“ _Not that, you imbecile!!_ ” Thorne screeches as the phone buzzes with an incoming text message. “ _That blasted class of yours!! Those little anarchist **ingrates** are **ruining** this school’s reputation!!_”

Peter stills. He pulls the phone away from his ear where Thorne is still screaming about expulsions and lawsuits and taps on the image that Nurse Vicky just texted him alongside about seven crying emojis.

It’s the blackboard in his classroom. Gone are his little notations of the date, the project for the week, and the little doodles that have been gradually growing across the board all semester. He feels a little morose at this fact before his mind really takes stock of what has replaced it.

There, in large chalk bubble letters that are definitely Polly’s brand of line but Evelyn’s shading technique, lie the words:

**ONE OUT**

**ALL OUT**

Peter’s wolf puffs itself up with pride, and it’s a struggle to tamp down on the smile threatening to spill out across his lips.

Those little shits.

Adam was definitely behind a lot of this. He may not have liked his new alpha all that much, but he must have picked up something in the incoherent mess that constituted Scott’s lessons about pack behavior.

Alicia and Walter definitely helped marshall everyone, what with their popularity— he still seemed to be their favorite of the McCall pack, despite or perhaps because of what happened to their respective older siblings.

Though it wouldn’t surprise him if Nana and Tim were also behind this. Those two were definitely the most possessive of all his kids, latching onto him and the rest of their classmates like a lifeline. Loss does that to a person.

He contemplates the likeliest places where they’d bunk off, somewhere where none of the good citizens of Beacon Hills could tell they were playing truant. He could always track Emile’s scent— it’s no wonder he’d been so secretive earlier if they were planning something like this— and surprise them with food.

Pizza and ice cream always seemed to go down well.

And then he notices a strange pattern of lines (definitely Jessica’s hand) in the space between the words, the epicenter of the ONE, ALL and OUTs. They’re in the darker blue chalk, so the lighter, more pastel shades around them draw the eye away.

He stares at the lines, then pulls up a map of Beacon Hills forest trails, flipping back and forth between the two apps with a sinking feeling in his gut.

Because he’s just now noticing the colors and patterns used to shade the OUTs, and another quick google search confirms his fears. The top one is the aromantic flag, the bottom the nonbinary flag.

Aromantic Fate and nonbinary J.P, who had both been missing since November.

He recall’s Emile’s shifty heartbeat when he said he was going out. Maybe he wasn’t (just) trying to hide his obvious crush on Nana, but what he was _actually_ going to be doing with her.

“Those little shits.” He groans.

“ _Language, Hale!!!_ ” Thorne shrieks from where he’s still on call. Peter shoots his phone a disgusted look and hangs up on that waste of flesh to deal with the more pressing matters now at hand.

Because _of course_ his little makeshift pack of preteens would work out where their missing classmates had vanished to before _the actual pack of werewolves_ could, and troop off together to go save them.

Fuck.

He’s going to need the Camaro for this.


	2. August—Before Class

**7 Months Earlier**

Peter needed to remind himself more often that, high schooler or not, Lydia Martin was a force to be reckoned with.

She and the rest of the original Hale-now-McCall pack vowed revenge on him not long after he revived, but all went about it in different ways.

Scott McCall simply punched him in the face and left it at that.

Stiles Stilinski somehow managed to find and break into his apartment and sprinkle crushed wolfsbane into enough garments and towels that Peter was still wary when he was getting ready for the day.

When Allison Argent was alive, she repeatedly left arrows bearing her family sigil in both his home and places he frequented— presumably, like Stiles, to violate his sense of territory and just to show that she could.

Derek just brooded and looked by turns murderous and guilty whenever his uncle was in the room before he left town, though his stint as Alpha could be called punishment enough.

Lydia Martin, however, played the long game.

He still wasn’t quite sure how she’d managed it.

Somehow, despite Peter never sending in his resume or going for an official interview, Lydia Martin had arranged for him to become Beacon Hills Middle School’s new art teacher.

She’d even managed to have a touching, heartfelt story printed on the front page of the Beacon Hills Daily about the miraculously recovered coma patient attempting to give back to the community via imparting his gift to impressionable young minds.

How she’d found out he was capable of art despite all of his portfolios and most of his dissertation research burning in the fire was also a little beyond him, but he digressed.

Scott appeared so moved by the article that any attempts to suggest that Peter _wasn’t_ actually going to take the job resulted in the alpha’s claws and fangs coming out in a way that promised either a maiming or expulsion from the McCall pack entirely.

And Peter had too many irons in too many fires to allow _that_ to happen.

So he’s standing in the front office of Beacon Hills Middle School, contemplating the rictus of existential pain on the face of something he thinks is meant to be a beaver.

It’s one of the better methods that he’s devised so far of blocking out the scent of emerging hormones, social anxiety and too strong body spray belonging to over 300 adolescents that are sleepily beginning to shuffle into the halls of the building.

While waiting to meet the Principal and Assistant Principal of this farce of an educational facility at 6:30 in the fucking morning.

So yes, Lydia Martin needs to have a closer eye kept on her in future.

For the good of man- and werewolf-kind really.

Finally, finally, he’s able to hear a man’s footsteps walking towards where he’s been waiting and politely avoiding the leering gaze of the elderly secretary. For some reason the man’s heartbeat, as choked by cholesterol as it is, sounds vaguely familiar.

“Well, well, _well_. Long time, no see, _Hale_.”

A portly man with a large bald spot has swung open the door and stands there with his hands on his hips as though he’s in some kind of soap opera. He has the beginnings of jowls and a shiny badge with the words ‘Assistant Principal’ on it that smells like it’s recently been polished.He’s also got a look of cocksure smugness on his face that seems out of place for some reason—

Peter’s mind supplies an image of a gangly teenager with overlarge glasses, a perpetually resentful expression, one ill-fated month with a fedora, and several pathetic attempts at a beard.

“Tommy!” Peter exclaims, smothering as much delight into his tone as he possibly can. It’s galling that he has to work for this sniveling toad, but he’ll be dammed if he lets the scum of his high school know it. “It’s been _ages_ since we graduated, how _have_ you been? You seem to have done well for yourself.”

Tommy’s face drops into the nostalgic expression of sour resentment that Peter so fondly remembers. “It’s Assistant Principal _Thorne_ to you, Hale.”

He turns sharply on his heel. “You’re late— _not_ a promising start. Follow me.”

 _‘Because you kept me standing out here for 30 minutes while you primped for your grand entrance, you miserable tapeworm.’_ Peter thinks, but does not say, plastering on his widest devil-may-care smile on his face instead.

Memory serves him well despite his brief sojourn into the great beyond, because Thorne’s face twists further in response before he feebly tries to not look like he loathes Peter’s guts.

He is lead into a warren of corridors that end in a door that is marginally nicer than the others, with the plaque ‘ **Principal Melinda Johnson** ’ on it. Thorne knocks on it, and opens it when a pleasant female voice bids they enter.

The Principal is a professional, pleasant woman with cropped hair and prominently displayed family and wedding photos on her desk. She looks him in the eye when shaking his hand and tells him honestly that she is honored to have him on board her staff, without a whiff of arousal to be found in her scent to Peter’s subtle relief.

She is clearly more used to dealing with the administrative affairs of the school as her speech about her school and students makes it evident that she is laboring under the slightly misguided assumption that her successes as a parent have translated to successes as an educator.

Thorne continually shoots his boss dark glances that were overlaid with the warring stink of contempt and arousal.

Peter kept a disgusted snort to himself. The toad really hadn’t changed since high school. He’d been like that around Talia, loathing her for her position as Student Body President and objectifying her in the same breath.

It was one of Peter’s most cherished memories, watching his sister casually verbally tear the covetous little bastard a new one when he tried to suggest that she was somehow unsuitable for her position due to her “womanly concerns”. It was just a shame she’d shot down his suggestions to tear Thorne’s gaseous black sedan a new one as well.

“And once again, Mr. Hale, may-I-say that your decision to come in so early for your new position shows remarkable promise for your future teaching career.” Principal Johnson enthuses, oblivious to the mutinous glares of her subordinate.

“Early, ma’am?” Peter inquires pleasantly, feeling the prickles of both righteous outrage and not-quite-so righteous homicidal urges at the sight of Thorne’s now sickly grinning face.

“Oh? Well, I thought Mr. Thorne had sent you the package that outlined the time slot for your class this year–1:30, wasn’t it Mr. Thorne?”

“ _12_ :30, Principal Johnson, just before A-lunch.” Thorne replies in a tone that does very little to disguise how smug he sounds.

Peter needs to clench his hands slightly to force his claws back in. Don’t rip his throat out now. It’s too quick. Too painless. Wait until McCall’s pack is suitably weakened, then tear apart this farce of an educational facility while the toad whimpers, and string his guts from the rubble.

Maybe total his car beforehand just to rub salt in the wound.

Peter smiles sheepishly, making sure none of his intentions for the school or certain members of its incompetent staff are visible. “Unfortunately, my apartment’s mail system is a bit byzantine; it wouldn’t surprise me if one of my neighbors ended up with my packet and forgot to return it to me.”

“Oh dear! Well, I’m sure Mr. Thorne can easily print you off another copy, can’t you, Mr. Thorne?”

“Mr. Thorne” curls his lip and then attempts to straighten his expression into a genial smile at the small frown that flits across Principal Johnson’s face.

Peter keeps his look of boyish, charming innocence, and begins to plot exactly how he can have the assistant principal removed from office, and maybe even from the great state of California.

He’s got to amuse himself _somehow_ during this torment, after all.

* * *

Peter wishes he’d been able to go home and at least nap for one of the six hours between his meeting with the principal and when he was due to start his class.

But no. _Assistant Principal_ Thorne decided it was imperative for him to meet _every_ member of the faculty that the school building had to offer.

After the third lunch lady and the fourth janitor, the adults began to blur together into an amorphous mass of names, ink and stress-soaked scents, and awful, _awful_ fashion sense.

Really, Peter should be commended on his self-control for not ripping out Thorne’s throat in the boys’ locker rooms then dragging the body outside to claim that it was a random vicious mountain lion attack.

But he digresses.

A couple do stand out.

The gym teacher—Brody or something— who starts out acting like he belongs on McCall’s high school lacrosse team, before breaking down in hysterics over his ex-wife and children. The long-suffering faces of his students suggest that this isn’t an uncommon occurrence.

The mathematics teacher— a Ms. McGrath—who reeks unpleasantly of resentment and poorly concealed fear and is in the Derek Hale School of trying to control people via shouting and threats, though hers are more geared towards grades than bodily harm.

The english teacher— Mr. Joshua Nord— is a name Peter takes the trouble to remember simply because he appears to be the least afraid of his own students. He could be tolerable company or the one most likely to stand up to Peter if he gets bored and decides to make his own _fun_.

By the time 12:00 rolls around, Peter already feels exhausted. He hasn’t even had to deal with any of the _actual_ children yet.

He was suddenly very glad for Principal Johnson’s insistence that he only hold one small class this year, as though exposure to too many middle schoolers at once would send him back into a coma.

Still, at least the scents of paints, inks and clay was familiar enough that it loosens something in Peter’s chest a little.

Funny, the things you don’t realize you miss until they’re suddenly returned to you.

He decides to peruse the back rooms, see exactly what he’ll be working with and how much he’ll need to compensate for budget limitations.

It’s mostly cheap paints, crayola color pencils, crayons, markers, a few sharpies, and some watered-down india ink, but at least there’s a decent set of lino blocks, some traditionally “craft” materials, and several air-sealed bags of clay that make him grin in anticipation.

A pair of small footsteps approach his classroom, and the door creaks open.

Peter contemplates emerging, but none of his students should be here yet. The footsteps that creep into the room are cautious, hesitant, ready to turn and run at any moment.

There’s a couple of high-pitched whispers of “ _It’ll be on the desk!_ ” and “ _Quickly, quickly!_ ” and Peter shifts so that he’ll be able to spy on the intruders into his territory through the glass window in the back room door.

The brown hair that rests on the child’s shoulders reminds Peter of a beagle’s floppy ears. The bags under her eyes (it’s usually a her with that sort of hairstyle) only further the similarities as she looks around wide-eyed on her twitchy, overly-cautious journey to his desk, clutching a brightly colored piece of plastic.

There’s a scent of heavily applied makeup emanating from near the door, combined with high-pitched snickering, suggests that her lookout is most likely a girl as well.

The child finally gets to his desk, and Peter rolls his eyes at the sound of rustling papers.

Really, how does this child _ever_ sneak anything past her parents or older relatives? It’s almost cartoonish how obvious she is— she makes Stilinski at his most discombobulated seem subtle and discrete.

There’s a soft scratching sound, and the scent of graphite. So a basic graffiti prank then. He hopes she at least does something more creative than a simple penis. Though it could make for a good first critique project...

The acrid burst of Sharpie ink gives him pause. Well, either she’s going above and beyond in the call of duty or, as the repetitive sound of the mark making suggests, she’s looking more to conceal something than to add.

Peter’s lips curl into a slow smirk.

The pencil scratches a few more times against the paper before the girl loses her nerve and barrels back towards the door of the classroom, bumping into her lookout, and the two sets of footsteps pound off down the hall, nervous giggles floating in their wake.

Peter lets himself out of the back room, and rearranges the freshly photocopied syllabi and scattered codes of conduct on his desk. He pauses to take in the results of the intruder’s meddling.

The smirk widens.

This promises to be _interesting_.


	3. August— Intro to Line and Shading

The adolescents file in, a few chattering to each other, but most with their heads down and stomachs rumbling, backpacks rustling with the sheafs of paper they’ve accumulated over the course of the day.

Even the peppier ones look tired as they choose their seats, and Peter can’t honestly say he blames them.

He’s in the back room again, observing how his students behave when they think they’re not being observed.

They’re terribly predictable. No one will sit in the front row of tables, a learned self-preservation instinct to keep distance between themselves and an unfamiliar, hostile adult.

Those that know each other will take seats near each other at the tables, their familiarity relative to how close they’re willing to sit to each other. Those that know no one will take seats as far away from everyone else as possible, or if they came in late, be forced into the seats that their classmates left purposefully unoccupied.

The bursts of petty ire towards those unfortunates who violate the buffer zones have Peter rolling his eyes. Really, the pretense that humans are anything but a particularly weak and underdeveloped sort of animal is laughable for all their veneer of “civilization”.

The beagle-girl and another girl barely make it inside before the tinny wail of what’s supposed to pass for a bell.

Beagle-girl plops behind the front table by the door, too focused on trying to rub an incriminating dark smear from the side of her hand to notice how she’s isolated herself.

The other girl scans the room, makes a face at the empty front tables, glances between them and the beagle-girl, before reluctantly seating herself next to a suddenly sour-faced young man at the end of the table that’s diagonally behind her compatriot.

So he finally has a face to put to the second intruder.

Well, isn’t it only fair that he return the favor?

Peter waits until his students begin to look around, and then opens the back-room door, feeling a measure of satisfaction when every single one of the thirteen heads whip to stare at him.

Beagle-girl shuts her mouth and tries to covertly lower her hand like she wasn’t about to try licking the stained side of it.

“Good afternoon.” Peter says pleasantly. “My name is Mr. Hale. I’ll be your art teacher for this year.”

He turns around to chalk his name at the top of the board, rolling his eyes where his students can’t see at the bursts of arousal coloring several scents behind him.

 _Teenagers_ , honestly.

He sets the chalk down and scoops up the papers on his desk in one hand, taking a moment to separate the syllabi from the rest. He circles around his desk, still smiling.

Beagle-girl doesn’t smell like arousal. She smells like fear and nerves, eyes wide and pulse racing when he stops in front of her table and proffers the syllabi.

“Would you mind passing these out while I call roll, dear?” Peter asks, smile broad and toothy.

She nods rabbit-quick, reaching out to take them with the stained left hand. She only realizes her mistake once the papers are in her grasp, face paling rapidly.

Peter’s grin broadens.

He turns and strolls back to his desk. “Now, if you have any name you would prefer to go by, please let me know and I will note it down on the attendance record, understood?”

There’s a chorus of nods and “yes”es from the class, save for beagle-girl and those who are clearly wondering why she’s decided to walk around the room to hand the syllabi out instead of passing them from her chair like a normal person.

Peter’s not entirely sure himself, but he digresses.

“Mark Spieler.”

“Right here.” A boy in the center table of the third row raises his hand with an unusual amount of self-assurance. His hair stinks of gel despite its untidy look and he’s lounging in his chair like it’s a throne, shooting conspiratorial grins to the girl and boy on either side of him.

His scent is shot through with a strange smell, something that Peter can’t quite identify but raises his hackles all the same. He’ll keep an eye on that one.

“Polly Russo.”

“Here!” The girl closest to the window in the second row raises her hand, appearing only moments from waving. She’s one of the peppier ones, with a braid covered in brightly-colored sporadically-spaced elastics, her irritation with the boy seated in the previously-unoccupied seat beside her lasting only moments.

Her scent right now is telling of mild confusion, presumably at Peter’s decision to start at the end of the roster instead of at the beginning as convention dictated.

“Alicia Reyes.”

“...Here.” A gloomy young woman seated at the far end of the central table of back row half-lifts a limp hand. Her clothes were dark and seemed haphazard somehow. Peter tilted his head, imagined a couple of years on her, and suddenly realized why he felt like her scent and features were vaguely familiar.

Well. This made things awkward.

“...Evelyn Mahealani.”

“Evie’s fine.” The smiling girl closest to the window at the back lifts the textbook she is in the process of tucking away into her backpack in lieu of raising her hand. Peter catches a glimpse of a boggled rainforest frog before the textbook goes down and away.

She at least appears to have a modicum of fashion sense, even with all the new-age jewelry littering her arms. She’ll soon learn how impractical those can be when they move into paints.

“Jordan Harlowe.”

“Here.” A young man with dreadlocks at the far table in the second row raises his hand, looking disinterested. He’d been one of the later ones in, and appeared wholly unconcerned with incurring the ire of his classmate by taking the “buffer” seat.

His eyes were flickering over his classmates in a vaguely judging manner, silently assessing in a way that reminded Peter of that useless lump Deaton and the charming Ms. Morrell.

“Adam Johnson.”

“Here!” A boy with enough acne to strike a match on at the central table of the second row raises his hand. Despite his irritation with his new table-mate, his overall demeanor seems to be eager to please, his clothes too neat to be anything that he’d chosen himself.

Peter recognizes him from the photos on his new boss’s desk, the nervously-smiling child standing next to his mother who probably had all of his teachers monitoring his behavior.

“Fate Evander.”

“Huh? Oh, here!” The young woman at the end of the window-table in the third row turns away from her hushed conversation with her table-mate to wave a hand. She pushes her glasses up her nose and turns to grin ruefully at her conversation partner at being caught distracted.

Peter would be surprised at the sight of a leather jacket in August, were he not intimately familiar with his nephew’s fascination with them that resulted in the item of clothing becoming a semi-mandatory pack uniform.

“Jean-Paul Durand.”

“J.P.” Peter has to blink at the curt person sitting next to the window in the third row, who stares at him moodily for a moment before turning back towards Fate. He’s... _relatively_ certain that Stilinski doesn’t have any siblings, but the resemblance is scarily uncanny.

The buzzed hair is ginger, the accent is French, the features are (somehow) a little more feminine, and the scent is telling of a life spent outdoors. But Peter’s going to poke around some of his sources, just in case.

“Timothy Coffret.”

“Right here!” The boy at one end of the center table in the third row throws up his hand, nearly clocking the self-assured boy next to him in the nose. The lanky boy freezes, face comically horrified before asking if his friend is okay with near-hysterical giggles.

Mark reaches over and begins attempting to noogie his dark brown hair while a girl on the other side of the table begins shaking her head and giggling along with them.

“Thomasina Coffret.”

“Tina, and that one’s Tim.” The young woman points at herself and then at the boy squawking in the noogie’s grip. Even if the same last names and familiarity weren’t a dead giveaway, the similar brunette hair, coloration, and scents marked those two as close siblings.

The way they were bracketing the strange-smelling boy was interesting though. Almost as though he were their alpha, despite the fact that none of them were werewolves from what Peter could tell.

“Jessica Berzynas.”

“Here~” The second intruder carelessly raises her hand with a look on her face that makes Peter want to roll his eyes again. She leans further onto the edge of the center table in the second row, her mooning expression only outmatched by the moon on her shirt that’s surrounded by airbrushed howling wolves.

And she’s wearing a dog collar too. An honest-to-god red fabric _dog collar_ that still carries the canine scent of its previous owner. Peter closes his eyes briefly and silently asks for patience.   
  


“Walter Boyd.”

“Here.” A nervous young man at the other end of the center table in the end row raises a hand, glances at Peter, and quickly away, dropping his hand as he does so. He adjusts his glasses, fiddling with his phone under the table, scent stinking of pungent self-loathing.

Jesus, what are the odds? Peter almost wishes there was a way to express his condolences to the two in the back without exposing his connection to their...older siblings? Cousins?

There should be “sorry the supernatural killed your loved ones” cards. It would make things so much easier. Peter himself could’ve done with one of those years ago.

His eyes flick back down to the roster.

The small smirk returns at the sight of the dark blot at the top of the page and the rounded handwriting that’s doing it’s best to mimic the typeface under it.

“Nana Assis.”

Beagle-girl continues handing out syllabi, shuffling the remaining papers and looking around to check her classmates all had one, beginning to start her circuit again once she realized she couldn’t tell from her position at the back of the class.   
  
  
Peter rolled his eyes. “ _Nana Assis_.”   


The second intruder turns around and hisses “ _Nana_!”

Beagle-girl’s head whips up to stare questioningly at her blonde cohort, before she catches sight of Peter (and the rest of the class) staring at her.

“Oh, um, present!” She squeaks, sticking a hand in the air.

Peter raises an eyebrow until she lowers it again. “Thank you for handing those out, Miss Assis. If you could return the extras to me?”

She tentatively approaches him, heartbeat still rabbit quick. She hands all the papers back to Peter, ignorant of the fact she’s forgotten to leave one for herself.

“If I could ask another favor of you, Miss Assis?” The girl pales again, but nods resolutely. “Would you mind drawing something small, on the corner of the board there? Anything you’d like.”

She follows where Peter’s pointing, and hesitantly walks over and picks up the white chalk. Shedraws a rectangle, then a slightly wonky cross within the rectangle, quickly shading the four areas outside the cross in white.

“It’s, um. The English flag. Because I come from a small village north of London, originally.” She explains haltingly, British accent thick in her voice as she gestures to her creation.

Peter nods. “Thank you for this, Miss Assis. You can sit down now.”

Nana Assis gratefully flees back to her one person table in front of the door, only looking mildly confused by the syllabus that’s magically appeared there in her absence.   
  


“Now, could anyone tell me what Miss Assis’ drawing is made up of?” Peter looks out over the class. “Mr. Harlowe?”

“Failed attempts at straight lines.” Jordan Harlowe deadpans, uncaring of the nervous titters around him, or the way that Miss Assis goes red and tries to sink down into her chair.

Peter raises an eyebrow. “Well Mr. Harlowe, if all lines were straight, life would be much more boring, now wouldn’t it?”

That garners a few giggles and Jordan Harlowe’s grudging nod, as though Peter’s passed some kind of test or won a round of something.

“Chalk.” Evie Mahealani calls out.

Peter nods to her. “That is indeed the correct material Miss Mahealani. But to go back to Mr. Harlowe’s insistence on boring convention, how would you define a line?”

There’s a silence as his students contemplate this, before Tim Coffret pipes up with, “A mark!”

“Hey!” Mark Spieler shoves his friend good-naturedly. “You callin’ me a line?”

“Yeah, a pick-up one.” Tina Coffret teases, grinning at the resulting groans from the people around her.

“A point following a dot!” Fate Evander volunteers.

“Well done, Mr. Coffret, Miss Evander. Broadly speaking, both of your definitions are correct. Lines are one of the most fundamental elements of 2D art, dating back to when cavemen discovered that mixing certain dusts with urine allowed them to paint on walls.” Peter takes a moment to enjoy the expressions of disgust and morbid interest on the faces of his students.  
  


“A set of closed lines, like the ones Miss Assis has so thoughtfully provided for us, divide the surface we are drawing on into positive and negative space. Can anyone tell me what the difference between those is? Yes, Mr. Durand?”

J.P. Durand’s face goes stormy all of a sudden. “I’m _not_ a Mr.”

“Ah, forgive me.” Peter says smoothly, “Would it be better if I address you using Miss or Mx.? And are there any pronouns you would prefer I use?”

The furious expression disperses somewhat. “...Mx. is fine I guess. And I use they/them.”

Miss Evander squeezes their shoulder, smiling hesitantly as they valiantly ignore their classmates’ curious stares.

“If you’d like to continue, Mx. Durand?” Peter prompts.

J.P. Durand bridles, a small sort of happiness infusing their scent as they say, “Positive space is within a shape, negative space is outside of it.”

“Very good.” Peter nods. “And, as well as forming shapes and denoting positive and negative space, lines can be used to show different colors and values of light, as Miss Assis has demonstrated with her shading here.”

Peter points to the white areas to emphasize his point, noting that the embarrassment and shame is gradually fading out of Miss Assis’ scent in favor of a small, happy sort of pride. 

“In this class, we will be covering the practical aspects of art creation, with a small emphasis on the theory and history behind the techniques we will be using.” Peter continues, directing his class to begin to examine their syllabi. “We will not have tests as you are all used to them, with rote memorization that fails to actually teach you anything. However, that does not mean that your grades will not be judged based on the quality of your work. While some of you may try to argue all art is subjective, trust me when I say that there is a difference between art that has real passion behind it, and art that you think is passable for a blow-off class.”

Peter grins, teeth bared and ever so slightly lengthened beyond an ordinary human’s. “And I _will_ know the difference, I promise you that.”

There is a collective shiver among the adolescents that makes Peter feel a lot more satisfied than he probably should, but he’s got to have his fun where he can, doesn’t he?

“This does not mean I expect you all to excel at every method I teach you. That will only stifle your talents and lead to irritation and boredom on both your and my behalf. In fact, I wish to encourage each of you to find a métier you are most comfortable with and see how you can produce something innovative with the unique skills you will develop. That is why, if you feel you have found a medium that “clicks” with you, I will permit you to continue to use it in conjunction with other methods if you let me know ahead of time. For some of you that will mean you may only discover your medium much later in the year, but that is unfortunately the nature of time and the world, which are both chronically unfair as you all have no doubt realized.”

That earns a few snickers, but some still look afraid.

“Again, I do not expect excellence in every area. That bores me, and as you will come to know, I _loathe_ boredom. Give me effort, genuine effort, and try to find some of that innovation that the education system has tried so hard to stamp out of you, and you will do just fine in this class. In other classes, you will be filling out worksheets and textbooks and exams that will ultimately mean nothing once you all move up in the world. Here is the only place where you can _create_ something, where you can mold the world into the vision you believe or wish it to be, rather than try to fit the molds it has arbitrarily decided to assign you.”

Peter looks out over the faces of the young minds he’s supposed to “enlighten”. What garbage. He’s not going to be putting anything there that there aren’t seeds of already.

“Yes.” He says, grinning wide. “I think we will all make something _very_ interesting together.”

The shrill whine that’s supposed to pass for a bell rings, and his new students pack away his syllabi and stream out of the door to fill their rumbling bellies.


End file.
